Books Are Siege Weapons
March 23, 2022
“Citizens of Russia, how is your blockade of Mariupol different from the blockade of Leningrad during World War II?” — Volodymyr Zelensky … More Books Are Siege Weapons
Category: History
Jean Laffite: Privateer, Pirate, Gentleman, Hero [BOOK REVIEW]
January 22, 2022
About fifteen years ago we went to a Talk Like a Pirate Day festival at a local museum (September 19). The museum hosted a Pirate Trivia Contest. Our team won. The prize, a pirate costume, was a flimsy one-size-fits-most Halloweenish coverall and an enviable plush tricorn hat. Best of all was bragging rights. … More Jean Laffite: Privateer, Pirate, Gentleman, Hero [BOOK REVIEW]
Halloween as Charity
October 19, 2021
“It is a time when charity is given freely to the poor.” … More Halloween as Charity
Love, Wisdom, and Compassion
January 17, 2021
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country. . . … More Love, Wisdom, and Compassion
King Under the Mountain: St. George of England
April 23, 2020
As an undergraduate, we’d read Edmund Spencer’s The Faerie Queene. The professor explained how the Red Cross Knight represented St. George, the patron saint of England, and his defeat of the dragon represented the triumph of British Protestantism over the presumed errors of ‘superstitious’ Catholicism. Twenty years later I found myself in an Orthodox church … More King Under the Mountain: St. George of England
Simple Courage and Everyday Humanity
February 18, 2020
In our news-oriented and social media society, uncivil and anti-social events seem to predominate. I recommend The Only Plane in The Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 with a little bit of the armchair historian, but mostly for its catalog of everyday courage and quiet affirmations of dignity which occurred that day. Here are some … More Simple Courage and Everyday Humanity
Our Part To Murmur Name Upon Name: Irish History in Song and Poetry
March 16, 2019
“Our part to murmur name upon name” – William Butler Yeats, “Easter 1916” In college, we preferred William Butler Yeats’ fairy and esoteric poetry. We instinctively knew that the world was “more full of weeping” than we could understand. In our own way we dreaded “the monstrous crying of the wind” even if … More Our Part To Murmur Name Upon Name: Irish History in Song and Poetry
A Tarnished Adaptation from the Golden Legend
October 3, 2018
Nicely told picture book legend, with the rhythm of a folktale. Most of the illustrations convey the mood and enhance the text, especially the aged face of the “fierce and bold” Offero, and the dark black and red illustration which accompanies the devil disguised as a knight. The illustration of the king was impressively majestic, … More A Tarnished Adaptation from the Golden Legend
Eleven Hundred Men Went Into The Water – Those Are Pearls That Were His Eyes
September 14, 2018
I’ve had Peter Benchley’s novel Jaws in my To-Be-Read list for several years. A writer friend recently recommended its dramatic opening chapter, so finally I picked it up and took it with me on my beach vacation last month. It was that opening scene which stuck with me as I waded ankle-deep in riptide currents … More Eleven Hundred Men Went Into The Water – Those Are Pearls That Were His Eyes
Seas, Storms, and Thankfulness
May 16, 2018
So many of our great epics are quests and journeys. Joseph Campbell’s classic book The Hero With a Thousand Faces is famous for elucidating what has come to be known as The Hero’s Journey. The lure of unseen marvels draws us, or danger compels us. It’s almost as if Homer’s The Odyssey is written in … More Seas, Storms, and Thankfulness
Cynthia June Long 